Family Affair

    At home, some families play Scrabble.  Some families play Yahtzee.  The Miller family, from Battle Ground, plays the blues.

    The Clayton Miller Band, a blues band composed of Larry Miller and his three sons, rehearse one or two hours every day in their home.  Music is not a game for them, as band members have aspirations of making it big someday.

    The band will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday at Duncan Hall, 619 Ferry St.

    "I don't know if we would be as close if it wasn't for the music," Larry said.  "We get in our little tussles and so forth, but actually when it boils down to it, we're very close as a family."

    With mother Tammy doing promotions and booking shows, the Clayton Miller Band consists of Clayton, 18, on guitar, Larry on bass; 14-year-old Cole on drums; and 6-year-old L.D. on harmonica.  All band members sing on different songs.

    When playing live, the band has the advantage of almost being able to read each other's minds and knowing what each member is going to do, an important advantage for the overall tightness of a set.

    "We can just do everything by looks, really," Clayton said.  "We don't have to say anything."

    "We feel it," Larry said.  "I mean, you could just feel it in our turn-arounds and everything from playing so much.  It's really felt.  We look at one another, and we know.  I suppose maybe it's because we're blood, too.  I don't know what it is, but it just gels.  It's very nice."

    Although they've been gigging for more than a year, the Millers first got together musically about three years ago after Clayton became tired of his alternative rock band.  Instead, he wanted to play the music he grew up with, the music that resonated from his home as a child - the blues.

    Clayton will be fine-tuning his guitar prowess this summer at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.  Berklee was the alma mater of Susan Tedeschi, one of the hottest and newest blues guitarists on the scene today.  He met Tedeschi when she opened for John Mellencamp at Purdue University last year.  He hopes that someday the band could get signed on Tone-Cool records, based just outside Boston and home to Tedeschi and Double Trouble, which is Jimmie and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan's band.

    Cole took lessons in South Bend from the legendary Bill "Stix" Nicks, who has toured with the Temptations and Wilson Pickett.

    Having a 6-year-old harmonica player in your band is, of course, a rarity, but the idea of L.D. joining the band was not a deliberate move.

    "We just heard him playing (one day) when he was getting off the school bus," Larry said.  "We heard him coming down the lane just wailing on it.  We couldn't believe it because none of us play a harp.  We don't know how to tell him to do it.  He just started listening to CDs and stuff."

    L.D. said he'd like to learn how to play guitar like his big brother.  I'm good at drums, too," L.D. said.

    With three out of four members well under 21, the band prefers paying festivals where all ages are represented in the audience.  "The atmosphere is always better," Clayton said.  "It's not as rowdy.  Usually, there are more people at festivals that care about your music."

    The Clayton Miller Band will play two festivals this summer in Lafayette- the Taste of Tippecanoe in June and the Jazz & Blues Festival in August.  They hope to branch out to play blues festivals in Indianapolis, South Bend, Memphis, St Louis, and Kansas City, Mo.

    The band enjoys covering blues classics, including "Checkin' on My Baby" by Junior Wells and "Sweet Home Chicago" by Buddy Guy, but original material is a significant part of their set.  Taking influences from B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Buddy Guy, the band is working on recording a full-length album due out this summer.

    So far, the band has been playing Greater Lafayette clubs, but a recent performance in Chicago will probably be remember for quite some time.

    "The boys played on stage at Buddy Guy's Legends with Harmonica Hines acoustically which was quite a privilege because that stage has been shared by a lot of stars: Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan," Larry said.

    The show was an improv, with the Miller brothers impressing the crowd enough to stay on stage for an hour.

    "My hamburger got cold." said Cole who didn't mind after a memorable drumming debut in Chicago.  "You look right behind you and there's all these pictures.  There's Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and all those bug guys right behind you."

    With young artists including Kenny Wayne Shepard and Jonny Lang selling millions of records and selling out clubs around the nation, a blues youth movement is n the works, which pleases Clayton.

    "Most festivals I went to were older crowds," Clayton said.  "But I think the blues is kind of on a comeback as far as younger people starting to realize that it's the roots of music."